A Public Apology

I’m not a religious man. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that faith is a powerful thing for some people. I just don’t really enjoy being told by strangers that I’m going to hell for believing things slightly differently to them. That’s why I normally steer clear of everything organised religion has to say about the world.

However, today I came across a news article that struck a chord with me. One of the top ranking clergy in the church of england is calling for the UK to apologise for it’s role in the slave trade. My reaction to this was “You mean we haven’t already?!” I didn’t know that.

I knew that the slave trade in this country was abolished two hundred years ago. I didn’t know we’d spent those two hundred years just pretending it didn’t happen. How are we as a people (and I mean all humanity here) meant to grow and learn from our mistakes if we can’t even admit that we made mistakes. If a child does something wrong then pretends that they didn’t do it, should they be allowed to go on maintaining that pretense? What kind of adult will that child grow into? As you can probably tell, I’m disgusted at finding out this news.

All I can do is offer my apologies on behalf of my country for the horrors and indignities visited upon the ancestors of those that read this. It’s not enough and it’s not my place…